Dodge Viper SRT10 Coupe

The reptile gets a roof.

Although increased practicality seems a bit of an oxymoron for a car well suited to club racing and autocrossing, our trip down through California confirmed the friendly nature of the Viper coupe. With big gearwheels shrilling along under your right elbow at 80 mph in sixth gear at just 1600 rpm on the interstate, the Viper ingests distances with the best of them. Its noise intensity may not be at Lexus levels, but the ride provided by the long-wheelbase chassis isn't bad at all, and I found the seat supportive and shaped to spread the load in a way that produced few pressure points.

That same seat—leather clad with a central suede insert—was not found wanting for support around Laguna Seca, where Dodge held the official introduction. Unsurprising, really, since the Viper is so much a track animal, but it is a pleasant surprise to find the seat a comfortable place to be eight hours and 500 miles later.

That's in keeping with the rest of the car's ergonomics. The wheel is square on to the driver and tilts to suit his or her style. Unlike the original Viper, which had offset pedals, this car's pedals are dead ahead. When adjusted all the way down, they were perfectly suited to heel-and-toe operation by these 34-inch-inseam legs and size-12 feet.

Add a comprehensive range of legible white-faced instruments, simple ventilation and radio controls, and a center console that has the shifter offset to the left and the handbrake parked off to the right, and you have the very model of ergonomic organization.

But layout is only part of the equation. The controls have to feel right and deliver the appropriate responses, and this they do—mainly. The beefy Tremec six-speed can sometimes fool you during the second-to-third shift if you try to force the pace. If you learn to push the leather-clad knob forward and then allow it to pop over into the third-to-fourth plane, you'll encounter no problems.

We have no complaints about steering and brake calibrations. The weighting and feedback levels seem just about right, helping lend an overall impression of a car that seems smaller when on the move than when viewed at rest. Another aspect of the Viper coupe that bumps its utility quotient is a short front overhang that largely cancels concerns about bottoming the chin spoiler on curbs and badly engineered surface transitions.

For a low-slung car with as many authentic aerodynamic accouterments as the Viper has, that's a welcome development. A low front air dam, a flat bottom, and an undertail diffuser act in concert with the Viper's sleek silhouette and subtle integral tail spoiler to keep the plot on the ground at speeds up to its claimed 190-mph top speed.

We didn't quite get to that velocity during our drive, but we can report complete stability at 160-plus. For those planning to explore the upper reaches of the dial, it's comforting to know the Viper has Zero Pressure versions of Michelin's Pilot Sport tires, which are self-supporting in the event of a puncture. The car also has as standard equipment a tire-pressure monitoring system, seatbelts with pretensioners, multistage airbags, and ABS.

Accompanying this latest generation of the Viper is the opportunity to select various options to customize the car, including the stone-white stripes made famous by the Viper GTS combined with various exterior colors, two wheel styles (a five-spoke and an H-pattern), and interior leather color combinations. Whatever, the $86,995 base model is unlikely to go unnoticed.

Verdict:

Model Research

*AccuPayment estimates payments under various scenarios for budgeting and informational purposes only. AccuPayment does not state credit or lease terms that are available from a creditor or lessor, and AccuPayment is not an offer or promotion of a credit or lease transaction.